


Hood

by themillersdaughtersmistress



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Brainwashing, Canon Rewrite, F/F, Forced Family Separation, first in a series
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-02-19
Updated: 2015-02-19
Packaged: 2018-03-13 20:39:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,796
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3395597
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/themillersdaughtersmistress/pseuds/themillersdaughtersmistress
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Fairytales. Honest to God, dragons and princesses and mermaids, if the kid was to be believed. All of them under a curse, he’d said, that only she could break. And the kicker? His mom, the one whose street she was now turning onto to return her son safe and sound, was the one that had cast it."</p>
<p>or: The One in Which Regina is Robin Hood.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> I attempted to write a fix-it fic where Robin Hood was on OUAT from the very beginning, since that (plus his characterization in general) was my main point of contention with him. Instead, Robin Hood became Marian-and-Regina Hood, and it all went downhill from there.

**0.**

Queen Athena was awake instantly, pulled into it by the pain shooting up the outsides of her tail. She looked down at it and let out a strangled gasp. A solid third of the scales were missing, maybe even half of them, leaving bloodied muscle exposed to the air. Air. She was  _out of water_ , laid out on a huge table at least five feet off the ground. She screamed, not caring that that had to have been the last of her oxygen.

“Oh good,” a high pitched voice said from behind her, and she whipped around to stare. A man, short and thin with scales like a mermaids in an oily gold, was stirring something in a huge cauldron on the other side of the room. “You’re awake.” He waved his hand and the table under her disappeared, replaced with a cage-lined pool of about the same height and a width of about half the room.  She fell into it, injuries burning but it was better than being without water.

After a beat, she identified the burning smell coming from the cauldron as her own scales being scorched, and she gagged. Dark Magic, then. Scales were a necessity in some curses, but they were usually so mild that a mermaid could just pull a tiny scale off for anyone asking and go on with their lives. “What the hell are you?” she demanded. “That you could get past the wards that the King of Atlantica himself put in place?”

The man shook his head, and kept stirring. “Didn’t get past anything. My dear apprentice Ursula, on the other hand…”

“She wouldn’t!” Athena protested, banging her fist on the edge of the glass.

“I  _might_  have been a bit…overzealous in explaining what I needed, but—” He shrugged. “—Ursula has always been the most loyal of my apprentices, and she obeyed without too much fuss.”

She didn’t believe him for a second, and banged her fist on the glass again. “When they find out who took me, they’ll kill you.”

He laughed at that, pulling the spoon out and waving it at her as he talked. Thick shiny purple liquid glistened at the end. “They won’t! They think Ursula killed you in a fit of jealous rage!”

“No!”

“I know!” He put the hand not holding the spoon to his heart and feigned shock. “So pedestrian and cut and dry, he has her in exile already, can you believe it?”

“Stop being mean!”

Athena turned towards the new voice. It was a boy, no more than three or four, in a ratty light blue nightgown with dark hair that flopped over his eyes. He was in a cage like hers.

“Oh, would you look at that,” their captor sneered. “You woke the child.”

“You promised!” the boy shouted. “You promised you wouldn’t be mean if I went with you!”

The man strode over to the boy, and bent at the waist to look him in the eye. “Robin, was it?”

“Roland!”

An over-exaggerated sigh of exasperation. “ _Fine_. You see what I had to put up with, before you came?” He directed the question at Athena, and she growled. He sighed, and walked over back to melting down her scales.

“Not for long,” Roland whispered her confidently. “Momma and R’gina are coming to get me!”

Her stomach dropped around to where her mangled fins were treading. She knew that name. “Regina?” she asked the boy tentatively.

“Momma’s helper, like me when we go hunting together! ‘cept they go out to get stuff for our village and other people, like big jewels and stuff, and people are really happy with Mama and Hood. She’s called Hood when they go out.” He scrunches his face up, and his shoulders drop. “Only she can’t be a helper all the time; she has t’ go back to a big castle and stay there all the time, and couldn’t even come out when it was my birthday.”

Her suspicion was confirmed. Queen Regina, the wife of the Good King Leopold, was involved in this, too, somehow, even if her involvement only extended to the grief she would go through when she found her friend’s son missing. What the  _hell_  sort of curse could this unknown man be making that was worth getting the attention and angering two of the most powerful royal families in the land?

~*~


	2. One

**1.**

The boy barely came up to her hip. The boy had one of the squeakiest prepubescent voices she’d ever heard. The boy was apparently her son.

Emma sank to the floor of her bathroom, vaguely hearing the kid—Henry, Henry, he had a name (one she hadn’t thought of atall)—rummaging around her kitchen. The dress she’d worn for her catch earlier that night clung to her with cold sweat, and she couldn’t get up to change, to at least try to straighten herself out so she wouldn’t seem like so much of a slob in the first impression of herself to her son, her son, he was—

“Emma?” He knocked tentatively on the door. “You got any juice?”

“Uh…yeah, kid.” She needed to get up, pull herself together—do something. “Did you check behind the milk?” A wince. And after that something, she also needed to throw out that two month old milk.

More rummaging as she hauled herself to her feet. “Found it!” She left the bathroom on shaky legs, and four hours later, she came to deeply regret that decision.

Fairytales. Honest to God, dragons and princesses and mermaids, if the kid was to be believed. All of them under a curse, he’d said, that only she could break. And the kicker? His mom, the one whose street she was now turning onto to return her son safe and sound, was the one that had cast it.

~*~

Ancient towering trees surrounded the clearing, their roots and the grass within covered in big bright flowers. The light was tinted gold by the canopy of leaves fading as the weather grew cooler, and a deer grazed on the other side of it.

 _It’s prettier at night_ , Regina thought with a sigh, securing Rocinante and walking slowly to the middle of the clearing. She didn’t have to wait long, before the sound of hooves alerted her to the person she’d been waiting for.

“Marian!” she cried, running towards the thief as she was climbing off her own horse. Maid Marian swept the other woman up in her arms, swinging her around and making the hood of her cloak fall down. Setting her back on her feet, Marian kept her arms around Regina’s waist and kept twirling her in an absurd parody of ballroom dance, landing quick kisses over her face, her neck, listening to her love’s laughter and shrieks of joy. They stumbled back, and Regina somehow ended up collapsed on top of Marian, the hat the thief had been wearing knocked off.

“That was  _brilliant_!” Marian said, kissing Regina firmly once more. “The most brilliant thing I’ve ever seen!”

“Was not,” came the mumbled protest, and Regina knew she was blushing, she  _had_ to be.

“Dear heart, you were amazing,” Marian whispered, pushing them both up until she was holding Regina securely in her lap instead of sprawled across her stomach. “That chase was amazing, you taking out that captain was amazing,  _you_ — _were_ — _amazing_.”

Regina giggled as Marian kissed her yet again. “I suppose I was, wasn’t I?” she conceded, grinning.

“Yes, and I can’t wait to recount Roland the story of how you saved a town, and got his birthday present while doing it.”

And in an instant, she’d deflated. “Yes, about that…” She toyed with the loose strings on Marian’s cloak, not meeting her eyes.

“I already know about the celebration, Regina,” Marian told her, rubbing her thumbs along her waist in a way she hoped was comforting. “Both Roland and myself do not expect you to risk your life to come out to one little birthday party when you’ve already—”

“But you should!” Regina interrupted, nearly shouting. She pushed herself off of Marian to get up and pace the length of the clearing, wringing her hands. “I love  _you_ , and little Roland, and I don’t want to spend a goddamn _week_  celebrating King Leopold’s birthday and not have a single day off to see you both!” She took a deep breath, and pressed forward before she lost her nerve.

“And you  _can_  expect me for his birthday,” she muttered. Regina reached behind her neck, to the clasp of the necklace Marian knew was always there; the necklace that held the ring of her love’s dead fiancé.

Marian frowned when she saw there was a different ring in place of the intricate silver one that she knew almost as well as the skin it rested on. Regina held the string of the necklace aloft and let the new ring fall into her hand, holding it out for Marian to see. It was a bright gold, a thick band wrapping around itself again and again, building to the single purple jewel set in it that glimmered in the light and seemed to contain huge swirling clouds.

“It’s my magic,” Regina said softly, and Marian jerked back, realizing she’d leaned in so close her nose was almost touching the jewel. “I can put some of you innate magic in with it, if you’d like.”

Marian’s frown deepened. “Combine magics? But why would—?”

“Marry me?”

Marian couldn’t possibly have heard her right. Just to be sure, she asked, “ _Marry_  you?” Regina nodded, her eyes squeezed shut.

 _Yes_ ,  _a thousand times yes_  was almost out of Marian’s mouth before she actually thought about it—thought about what would happen if they got caught, thought about Regina’s execution, or worse, Regina humiliated by a divorce from the most powerful king in the enchanted forest, dead or worse within a week of being thrown out of the castle—

“I can’t,” Marian said instead, and felt physically stabbed at the look on Regina’s face. “No, dear heart, not like that—Regina,  _wait_!” She jumped up and caught the other woman’s wrist right as she got to Rocinante’s side, pulling her back around to face her. “I want to, I promise you I do, but  _think about this_!”

“I have!” Regina shouted. “What do you think I was doing, every night I was working on your ring?”

“Did you think about what would happen if we got caught? If my agreeing was what caused something terrible to happen to you, something that can’t be undone?”

“We won’t, you know I have magic!”

“And the King has the Blue Fairy, and thousands of men who won’t stop, will  _never_  stop looking for us, even after he is long dead! Regina,  _please_ ,” Marian pleaded. “I love you enough to aid you if you were to run right now, but don’t make me risk your life like that.  _Please_.”

Regina sighed, and was silent for a minute before speaking again. “And if I planned more, if there was no risk? Would you marry me, Maid Marian?”

Marian smiled in relief, wrapping her in her arms again. “Yes, dear heart—of course.”

~*~

The hands on the clocktower, for the first time in the history of Storybrooke, moved for all in the town to see. In his bedroom, gazing at the clock, a little boy smiled in relief. Across town, a man swiftly moved to his car, speeding down dark roads to the hospital.

The hospital was only barely lit when he arrived, almost everyone home and sleeping soundly. He bypassed the security measures on the door in front of the basement stairwell easily, with a curious flick of his wrist, and climbed silently down. There were only a few occupied rooms this far down, and the route to the one he wanted was familiar to him, having come here almost every month for twenty eight years.

The door creaked as he pushed it open, not bothering to close it as he stepped inside. There was no possible escape—he’d made sure of it long ago.

“Did you hear that?” A tap of his cane too near the foot of the room’s inhabitant. “The clock has started, right on time.”

Mr. Gold leaned down to be eye-to-eye with Marian, huddled up in the darkest corner of the room. “I suggest preparing yourself, dearie. I plan to call in that favor you owe me very soon.”

~*~

 


	3. Two

**2.**  

The clanging bells hurt Belle’s ears almost as much as the bright blue of the sky. She was nearly shoved to the ground twice as she walked back to her bookshop, the heavy crowd cramming themselves into the square for the market making it impossible to move. She wouldn’t have come out of the bookshop at all if it weren’t for the fact that as the new owner, she  _had_  to be there to present the books they were selling today. Thankfully, she’d got an apprentice to staff their stand for the next two hours, so she had a break. She sped up when she saw the tall tower of her beloved shop, thinking of all the books that she, thankfully, did not have to part with today. 

Looking back on the moment years later, she would remember that she had been exactly two and one-quarter buildings away from her beloved shop when it happened, the sky making the tops of the butcher’s shop in particular especially vibrant.

There were two soldiers, or three—she could never remember looking back, or remember the insignia on their armor that would have been enough to connect them with a boat that had come in—aggressive and bigger than her and she had almost convinced them that she had a very explosive vial she had to stow away in her shop—and if only they’d let her go then she’d deposit it safely and come running back—when a wolf the size of a battle horse lunged over her head and tackled the lead soldier.

~*~

 “I guess I don’t need to tell you how much of a bad idea it is to get a crush on a straight woman, do I?” Emma asked Ruby when she brought over her order, and nearly got fries down her shirt as a result.

“’Course not,” Ruby grinned down at Emma, swiping two of her fries. “It’s even worse to get a crush on your best friend, though, so I’m thinking the two cancel each other out.” Emma snorted, and took one of the fries back.

 Ruby’s back was tense, and she was pointedly turned away from the couple in the booth two away from Emma. Mr. Gold and his fiancée, Belle, were cute enough—if you ignored the severe age gap between the two of them, making Gold old enough to be her father. (There was also the fact that he creeped Emma the hell out, and while her gut rarely failed her, she had no actual proof of anything to back it up.) Belle giggled at something he said, twirling the gold necklace around her neck in her fingers. Light glinted off the delicate blue stone that was the necklace's only adornment.

Ruby slid into the booth across from her. “What are you here for, anyway? Don’t you still have stuff to move into Mary Margaret’s?”

“Nah,” Emma replied, fiddling with her burger. “Only got one box. Besides, you know how the Mayor’s kid is obsessed with fairytales and stuff?” Ruby nodded warily, and  _jesus fuck_  Emma wasn’t going to have a single fry left in her basket by the end of this. She looked around to make sure Henry wasn't here yet. School was over, but it still took nearly ten minutes to walk here. “Well, I think I might have found a way to get him to snap out of it, a bit, without hurting anyone.”

~*~

The bang from the night stand falling to the floor would have woken the entire castle, if the entire castle wasn't passed out from too much liquor. Red stopped sucking Belle's neck long enough to look down at the shattered mess of wood for a moment before burrowing back where she'd left, teeth catching on the thin gold chain of Belle's necklace. "I can definitely fix that," she mumbled, hiking Belle's coat up to her waist.

"No, no," Belle protested, pushing Red back with a gasp. "We should clean it up now. Besides, we're supposed to on patrol!"

"Patrol for _what_?" Red argued. "You saw the battle today! The Queen was defeated soundly and won't come back for days, weeks! We have this night to ourselves for once—not strategizing or fighting or gathering supplies, just us! Mulan's already tested the wards around our army with her sword—we're safe! The patrolling was Snow's way of telling us to go have fun—we've earned it." Belle looked unconvinced. "We  _have_ earned it, haven't we?"

"Well..." Belle sighed. "I've been doing some reading—don't give me that look!—about the light bending over the dark one's castle. Snow and Charming were worried about it, so they gave it to me to look into."

"And?" Red pressed, when Belle didn't continue.

"And light bending like that only happens when the very earth, the fabric of the realms is being bent in ways it should not be bent. I know we haven't seen him help either side for months, and nothing significant for years, but Red, he's doing some very dark magic very,  _very_ close to us. Can you blame me for being worried?"

When Red didn't respond, only ground her teeth together, Belle pressed further. "You remember when we first met?"

"Yes," Red mumbled.

"You attacked those soldiers, but only relied on your gut instinct to guide you. Nothing was wrong in any other way, but because you trusted yourself, I didn't have something very bad happen to me." Se smiled, running her thumbs over Red's cheeks and kissing her. "And I met you. So trust me on this. Please?"

"Okay," Red finally relented. "Okay, we'll patrol extra close to his castle. Who knows?" She grinned. "You might even see the Dark One himself!"

~*~

The second Emma saw Mary Margaret’s face, she knew. The other woman walked through the door of the diner and refused to meet Emma’s eyes. She could feel Henry perking up with excitement beside her, and her stomach filled with dread.

“Did it work?” Henry demanded.

“Not exactly,” she shrugged apologetically at Emma, before turning to the boy besides her bouncing in his seat. “There was…something there. He seemed to wake up and grab my hand—but that doesn’t mean anything, Henry!” She added the last bit quickly after seeing the storm clouds quickly gathering on Emma’s brow.

“Yes it does!” he exclaimed. “The curse—it’s breaking!”

~*~

“Let her go,” Red said as she stepped out from behind the trees, looking straight at the imp holding Belle captive. She felt her bones shifting beneath her skin, ready to turn into the wolf at any moment.

"What took you so long, dearie?" the imp had the audacity to chuckle. "I was beginning to worry your nose wasn't as good as they say!"

"Leave her out of this!" Belle shouted, rattling the tree branches holding her in their cage directly in the center of the clearing. "Whatever business you want with me, leav her—"

"Oh, but i don't have any business with you!" the Dark One cut her off. "Well...outside of any business a simple lonely old man would have with a beautiful thing such as yourself." A growl, deep and bone rattling, ripped through the clearing, and still all the imp did was giggle at Red's anger. "Oh, look! The pup is almost as terrifying as it's withered old grandmother!" Red felt her clothes rip, and the world went dark.

When she woke up, she was cold—half of her fur was missing. In the dawn light, she slowly shifted back to her human form. The clearing was quiet, as if waiting for something. When Red turned around, naked in the frosted grass, she saw what. Birds launched themselves from the trees and wildlife scattered at the soul crushing scream that echoed through the forest.

"Oh, no," Red whimpered, crawling to the bloody mass across the forest for from her. "Oh, no,  _please—_ " She gently pulled the lump onto what she could only guess was it's back, and bit back another scream. There, embedded between muscle and bone, was Belle's gold necklace.

~*~

He had no idea who he was, or  _where_  he was. It was too dark and too quiet for him to place anything, and the walls and floors were to smooth and cold to be anything he was familiar with. (What was he familiar with?) He stumbled down the hallways, looking for an out.

Banging made his head snap in the direction of the story, and he turned his head in the direction it was coming from. A heavy metal door was off to his left, being banged on an shook by…someone. He couldn’t actually see through the thick tinted glass. He argued with himself for a second, and then walked over and yanked the door open. A woman, with a long oval face surrounded by wild dark hair, nearly tumbled to his feet. She was wearing the same thin long tunic as him, but her knuckles were a vivid red against light brown from beating the door.

“Charming?” she demanded, gaping at him.

“Uhm…sure?” he shrugged. He had no idea what she was talking about, but since they were in the same boat of wandering around at night, he might as well go with it.

“You don’t remember,” she breathed, looking at him with some dawning realization. “The curse worked.”

“Let’s…go with that,” he nodded to confirm he was going along with whatever she was saying.

He jumped when she suddenly took off down the hall, in the direction she’d come from. “Hey, wait!” he shouted, sprinting after her. “Where are you going?”

“I need to get to Regina!” the woman shouted over her shoulder, not stopping. “That bastard’s done something, and I need to know—hey!” He pulled her around to face him, leaning over and holding himself up with his hands on his knees.

“Slow…down,” he panted. “Whatever ‘he’ did? It’s done. And we need a plan, so we don’t get the same thing done to us.”

“We?” she cocked an eyebrow.

“Yeah,” he said grinning, standing back up and sticking out his hand. “You called me Charming, so I’ll guess I’ll go by that for now. What’s your name?”

She smiled back at him, and shook his hand. “Marian.”


End file.
